BILLY OCEAN

Billy Ocean's string of smash international hits in the '80s -- starting with 1984's "Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)" and running through 1988's "Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car" -- tends to obscure his enduring success in his home base of the United Kingdom. Although new hits dried up for Ocean after the '90s, his '80s singles -- which also include the ballads "Suddenly" and "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)" along with the bouncy, inspirational "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going" -- retained their popularity, allowing the singer to sustain a career into the 21st century.

City LimitA native of Trinidad and Tobago, Billy Ocean -- born Leslie Sebastian Charles on January 21, 1950 -- moved to England with his family when he was ten years old, gravitating toward music not much later. At first taken with calypso music, he soon learned to love soul and rock, then started to play clubs when he was a teenager. He released two singles as Les Charles in 1971 ("Nashville Rain") and 1972 ("Reach Out a Hand") before singing with Scorched Earth on the 1974 single "On the Run." A year later, he adopted the stage name Billy Ocean and had a number two U.K. hit with "Love Really Hurts Without You," a single that also managed to reach 22 on Billboard's Hot 100. "Love Really Hurts Without You" anchored his 1975 self-titled debut, which generated two further U.K. hits in "L.O.D. (Love on Delivery)" and "Stop Me (If You've Heard It All Before)." The non-LP single "Red Light Spells Danger" went all the way to two in 1977, but the singles from his 1979 album City Limit didn't crack the Top 40. Its two successors -- 1981's Nights (Feel Like Getting Down) and 1982's Inner Feelings -- didn't manage to generate hits in the U.K., but "Nights (Feel Like Getting Down)" did make it into the U.S. R&B Top Ten in 1981.